"An absinthe!"
"A packet of Caporal!"
"Un bock pour vous, m'sieur?"
"A vodka!"
A frowsy waiter was hurrying through some such jangle of loud voices from the "comrades" scattered among the tables set in a back room in a very back street of Soho. The hour was two in the morning, and the light in that Anarchist Club was murky and blurred. Only one gas-jet on the wall lit the room, and that struggled but feebly through the cigarette smoke that choked the air like a fog—air that was foul and close as well as dim, for some thirty persons, mostly men but some few women, were crowded in there as if there was no place else on earth for them.
One heard the rattle of dice, the whirr of cards being shuffled against the thumbs, the grating of glass tumblers against imitation granite. Two poor girls, cramped in a corner, were attempting to dance to the rhythm of an Italian song. They were laughing with wide mouths, their heads thrown back,weary unto death, yet alive with make-believe mirth.
At one of the tables sat Gaston Janoc, the man who had been seen by Inspector Clarke talking in St. Martin's Lane to Bertha Seward, one-time cook in the Feldisham Mansions flat. Playing vingt-et-un with him was a burly Russian-looking man, all red beard and eyebrows; also a small Frenchman with an imperial and a crooked nose; while a colored man of Martinique made the fourth of a queer quartette. But somehow Janoc and the rough, red Russian seemed not to be able to agree in the game. They were antagonistic as cat and dog, and three times one or other threw down his cards and looked at his adversary, as who should say:
"A little more of you, and my knife talks!"
"Who are you, then, Ruski?" cried Janoc at last, speaking French, since the Russian only glared at him when he swore in his quaint English.
Yet the Russian grumbled in English in his beard: "No French."
"And no Italian, and no Spanish, and no German, and very, very small English," growled Janoc in English, frowning at him; "Well, then, shall we converse, sare?"
"What is that—'converse'?" asked the Russian.
Janoc shrugged disgustedly, while the little Frenchman, whose eyes twinkled at every tiff between the pair, said politely in French:
"We await your play, m'sieurs."
Twice, on the very edge of the precipice of openhostilities, Janoc and the Russian stopped short; but a little after two o'clock, when much absinthe and vodka had been drunk, an outbreak took place: for the Russian then cried out loudly above the hubbub of tongues:
"Oh, you—how you call it?—tcheeeet!"
"Who? I—me?" cried Janoc sharply, pale, half-standing—"cheat?"
"Yes—tcheeet, youtcheeet!" insisted the bearded Slav. And now the little Frenchman with the crooked nose, who foreknew that the table was about to be upset, stood up quickly, picked up his thimbleful of anisette, and holding it in hand, awaited with merry eyes the outcome.
Instantly Janoc, who was dealing, sent the pack of cards like an assault of birds into the Russian's face, the Russian closed with Janoc, and forthwith the room reeled into chaos. The struggle need not be described. Suffice it to say, that it lasted longer than the Russian had probably expected, for Janoc proved to have sinews of steel, though thin steel. His lank arms embraced the Russian, squeezing like a cable that is being tighter and tighter wound. However, he was overcome by mere weight, thumping to the floor among a tumbled dance of tables, chairs, and foreign drinks, while the women shrieked, the men bellowed, and the scared manager of the den added to the uproar by yelling:
"M'sieurs! M'sieurs! Je vous prie! The police will come!"
Only one soul in the room remained calm, and that was the diminutive Frenchman, who kept dodging through the legs and arms of the flood of humanity that surged around the two on the floor.
He alone of them all saw that the Russian, in the thick of the struggle, was slipping his hand into pocket after pocket of Janoc under him, and was very deftly drawing out any papers that he might find there.
In two minutes the row was ended, and the gaming and drinking recommenced as if nothing had happened. The Russian had been half led, half hustled to the front door, and was gone. Immediately after him had slipped out the bright-eyed Frenchman.
The Russian, after pacing down an alley, turned into Old Compton Street, twice peering about and behind him, as if disturbed by some instinct that he was being shadowed. And this was so—but with a skill so nimble, so expert, so inbred, did the Frenchman follow, that in this pursuit the true meaning of the word "shadowing" was realized. The Russian did not see his follower for the excellent reason that the Frenchman made himself an invisibility. He might have put on those magic shoes that shadows shoot and dash and slink in, so airily did he glide on the trail. Nor could mere genius have accomplished such a feat, and with such ease—were it not for the expertness that was wedded to genius.
When the Russian emerged into the wide thoroughfare close to the Palace Theater, he stood under alamp to look at one of the papers picked from Janoc's pockets; and only then did he become aware of the Frenchman, who rose up out of the ground under his elbow with that pert ease with which a cork bobs to the surface of water.
"Got anything of importance?" asked the Frenchman, his twinkling eyes radiant with the humor of the chase.
The Russian stared at him half a minute with the hung jaw of astonishment. Then, all at once remembering his rôle, he cried hoarsely:
"No English!"
"Oh, chuck it!" remarked the other.
Again the Russian gazed at the unexpected little phenomenon, and his voice rumbled:
"What is that—'chuck it'?"
Suddenly the Frenchman snatched Janoc's paper neatly with thumb and finger out of the Russian's hand, and ran chuckling across Charing Cross Road eastward. The Russian, with a grunt of rage, made after him with his long legs. But, from the first, he saw that he was being left behind by the nimble pace set up by a good runner. He seemed to understand that a miracle was needed, and lo, it occurred, for, as the two crossed the road in front of the Palace Theater, the Russian lifted his voice into:
"Stop him! Stop thief! Police! Police!"
Not only did he yell in most lucid English, but he also plucked a police whistle from his coat and blew it loudly.
No policeman happened to be near, however, and the deep sleep of London echoed their pelting steps eastward, until the Russian saw the paper-snatcher vanish from sight in the congeries of streets that converge on the top of St. Martin's Lane.
He lost hope then, and slackened a little, panting but swearing in a language that would be appreciated by any London cabman. Nevertheless, when he, too, ran into St. Martin's Lane, there was the small Frenchman, standing, wiping his forehead, awaiting him.
The Russian sprang at him.
"You little whelp!" he roared. "I arrest you——"
"Oh, what's the good, Clarke? You are slow this evening. I just thought I'd wake you up."
"Furneaux!"
"Fancy not knowing me!"
"It wasyou!"
"Who else? Here's your Janocy document. You might let me have a look at it. Share and share alike."
Clarke tried to retrieve lost prestige, though his hand shook as he took the paper.
"Well—I—could have sworn it was you!" he said.
"Of course you could—and did, no doubt. Let's have a glimpse at those documents."
"But what wereyoudoing in the Fraternal Club, anyhow? Something on in that line?"
"No. An idle hour. Chance of picking up a stray clew. I sometimes do dive into those depths without special object. You managed that to a T with Janoc. Where are the other papers? Hand them over."
"With pleasure," said Clarke, but there was no pleasure in his surly Russian face, in which rage shone notwithstanding a marvelous make-up. Still, he opened the paper under the lamp—a sheet of notepaper with some lines of writing on the first page; and on the top of it, printed, the name of a hotel, "The Swan, Tormouth."
The two detectives peered over it. To the illimitable surprise of both, this letter, stolen by Clarke from Janoc's pocket, was addressed to Clarke himself—a letter from Rupert Osborne, the millionaire.
And Osborne said in it:
Dear Inspector Clarke:—Yours of the 7th duly to hand. In reply to your inquiry, I am not aware that the late Mlle. Rose de Bercy had any relations with Anarchists, either in London or in Paris, other than those which have been mentioned in the papers—i.e., a purely professional interest for stage purposes. I think it unlikely that her connection with them extended further.I am,Sincerely yours,Rupert Osborne.
Dear Inspector Clarke:—Yours of the 7th duly to hand. In reply to your inquiry, I am not aware that the late Mlle. Rose de Bercy had any relations with Anarchists, either in London or in Paris, other than those which have been mentioned in the papers—i.e., a purely professional interest for stage purposes. I think it unlikely that her connection with them extended further.
I am,Sincerely yours,Rupert Osborne.
I am,Sincerely yours,Rupert Osborne.
Furneaux and Clarke looked at each other in a blank bewilderment that was not assumed by either man.
"Didyou write to Mr. Osborne, asking that question?" asked Furneaux.
"No," said Clarke—"never. I didn't even know where Osborne was."
"So Janoc must have written to him in your name?" said Furneaux. "Janoc, then, wishes to know how much information Osborne can give you as to Mademoiselle de Bercy's association with Anarchists. That seems clear. But why should Janoc think thatyouparticularly are interested in knowing?
Clarke flushed hotly under the paint, being conscious that he was investigating the case on his own private account and in a secret way. As a matter of fact, he was by this time fully convinced that Rose de Bercy's murder was the work of Anarchist hands, but he was so vexed with Furneaux's tricking him, and so fearful of official reprimand from Winter that he only answered:
"Why Janoc should think that I am interested, I can't imagine. It beats me."
"And how can Janoc know where Osborne is, or his assumed name, to write to him?" muttered Furneaux. "I thought that that was a secret between Osborne, Winter, and myself."
Clarke, equally puzzled, scratched his head under his wig, which had been insufferably hot in that stifling room.
"Janoc and his crew must be keeping an eye on Osborne, it seems—for some reason," he exclaimed."Heaven knows why—I don't. I am out of the de Bercy case, of course. My interest in the Janoc crowd is—political."
"Let me see the letter again," said Furneaux; and he read it carefully once more. Then he opened the sheet, as if seeking additional information from the blank pages, turned it over, looked at the back—and there at the back he saw something else that was astounding, for, written backwards, near the bottom of the page, in Osborne's handwriting, was the word "Rosalind."
"Who is 'Rosalind'?" asked Furneaux—"see here, an impression from some other letter written at the same time."
"Don't know, I'm sure," said Clarke. "A sister, perhaps."
"A sister. Why, though, should his sister's name appear at the back of a note written to Janoc, or to Inspector Clarke, as he thought?" said Furneaux to himself, deep in meditation. He suddenly added brightly: "Now, Clarke, there's a puzzle for you!"
"I don't see it, see any puzzle, I mean. It might have appeared on any other letter, say to his bankers, or to a friend. It was a mere accident. There is nothing in that."
"Quite right," grinned Furneaux. "And it was a sister's name, of course. 'Rosalind.' A pretty name. Poor girl, she will be anxious about her fond and doting brother."
"It may be another woman's name," said Clarkesagely—"though, for that matter, he'd hardly be on with a new love before the other one is cold in her grave, as the saying is."
Furneaux laughed a low, mysterious laugh in his throat. It had a peculiar sound, and rang hard and bitter in the ears of the other.
"I'll keep this, if you don't mind," he said, lapsing into the detective again.
Meantime, Furneaux knew that there were other papers of Janoc's in Clarke's pocket, and he lingered a little to give his colleague a chance of exhibiting them. Clarke made no move, however, so he put out his hand, saying, "Well, good luck," and disappeared southward, while Clarke walked northward toward his residence, Hampstead way. But in Southampton Row an overwhelming impatience to see the other Janoc papers overcame him, and he commenced to examine them as he went.
Two were bills. A third was a newspaper cutting from theMatincommenting on the murder in Feldisham Mansions. The fourth had power to arrest Clarke's steps. It was a letter of three closely-written pages—in French; and though Clarke's French, self-taught, was not fluent, it could walk, if it could not fly. In ten minutes he had read and understood....
St. Petersburg says that since the secret meeting, a steady growth of courage in the rank-and-file is observable. As for the Nevski funds, an individual highly placed, whose name is in three syllables, is said to be willing to come to the rescue.Lastly, as to the traitress, you will see to it that she to whose hands vengeance has been intrusted shall fail on the 3rd.
St. Petersburg says that since the secret meeting, a steady growth of courage in the rank-and-file is observable. As for the Nevski funds, an individual highly placed, whose name is in three syllables, is said to be willing to come to the rescue.Lastly, as to the traitress, you will see to it that she to whose hands vengeance has been intrusted shall fail on the 3rd.
This was in the letter; and as Inspector Clarke's eyes fell on the date, "the 3d," his clenched hand rose triumphantly in air. It was on Julythe 3dthat Rose de Bercy had been done to death!
When Clarke again walked onward his eyes were alight with a wild exultation. He was thinking:
"Now, Allah be praised, that I didn't show Furneaux this thing, as I nearly was doing!"
He reached his house with a sense of surprise—he had covered so much ground unconsciously, and the dominant thought in his mind was that the race was not always to the swift.
"Luck is the thing in a man's career," he said to himself, "not wit, or mere sharpness to grasp a point. Slow, and steady, and lucky—that's the combination. The British are a race slower of thought than some of the others, just asImay be a slower man than Furneaux, but we Britons rule the world by luck, as we won the battle of Waterloo by luck. Luck and prime beef, they go together somehow, I do believe. And what I am to-day I owe to luck, for it's happened to me too often to doubt that I've got the gift of it in my marrow."
He put his latch-key into the door with something of a smile; and the next morning Mrs. Clarke cried delightedly to him:
"Well, something must have happened to put you in this good temper!"
At that same hour of the morning Furneaux, for his part, was at Osborne's house in Mayfair, where he had an appointment with Mrs. Hester Bates, Osborne's housekeeper. He was just being admitted into the house when the secretary, Miss Prout, walked up to the door—rather to his surprise, for it was somewhat before the hour of a secretary's attendance. They entered together and passed into the library, where Hylda Prout invited him to sit down for a minute.
"I am only here just to collect and answer the morning's letters," she explained pleasantly. "There's a tree which I know in Epping Forest—an old beech—where I'm taking a book to read. See my picnic basket?—tomato and cress sandwiches, half a bottle of Chianti, an aluminum folding cup to drink from. I'll send for Mrs. Bates in a moment, and leave her to your tender inquiries. But wouldn't you prefer Epping Forest on a day like this? Do you like solitude, Inspector Furneaux? Dreams?"
"Yes, I like solitude, as boys like piracy, because unattainable. I can only just find time to sleep, but not time enough to dream."
Hylda lifted her face beatifically.
"Iloveto dream!—to be with myself—alone: the world in one compartment, I in another, with myself; with silence to hear my heart beat in, and time to fathom a little what its beating is madly trying to say; an old tree overhead, and breezes breathingthrough it. Oh,theyknow how to soothe;theyalone understand, Inspector Furneaux, andtheyforgive."
Furneaux said within himself: "Well, I seem to be in for some charming confidences"; and he added aloud: "Quite so;theyunderstand—if it's a lady: for Nature is feminine; and only a lady can fathom a lady."
"Oh, women!" Hylda said, with her pretty pout of disdain,—"they are nothing, mostly shallow shoppers. Give me a man—if he is a man. And there have been a few women, too—in history. But, man or woman, what I believe is that for the greater part, we remain foreigners to ourselves through life—we never reach that depth in ourselves, 'deeper than ever plummet sounded,' where the realIwithin us lives, the real, bare-faced, rabid, savage, divineI, naked as an ape, contorted, sobbing, bawling what it cannot speak."
Furneaux, who had certainly not suspected this blend of philosopher and poet beneath that mass of red hair, listened in silence. For the second time he saw this strange girl's eyes take fire, glow, rage a moment like a building sweltering in conflagration, and then die down to utter dullness.
Though he knew just when to speak, his reply was rather tame.
"There's something in that, too—you are right."
She suddenly smiled, with a pretty air of confusion.
"Surely," she said. "And now to business: first, Mrs. Bates——"
"One moment," broke in Furneaux. "Something has caused me to wish to ask you—do you know Mr. Osborne's relatives?"
"I knowofthem. He has only a younger brother, Ralph, who is at Harvard University—and an aunt."
"Aunt's name Rosalind?"
"No—Priscilla—Priscilla Emptage."
"Who, then, may 'Rosalind' be?"
"No connection ofhis. You must have made some mistake."
Furneaux held out the note of Rupert Osborne to Janoc intended for Clarke, holding it so folded that the name of the hotel was not visible—only the transferred word "Rosalind."
And as Hylda Prout bent over it, perplexed at first by the seeming scrawl, Furneaux's eye was on her face. He was aware of the instant when she recognized the handwriting, the instant when reasoning and the putting of two-and-two together began to work in her mind, the instant when her stare began to widen, and her tight-pressed lips to relax, the rush of color to fade from her face, and the mask of freckles to stand out darkly in strong contrast with her ivory white flesh. When she had stared for a long minute, and had had enough, she did not say anything, but turned away silently to stand at a window, her back to Furneaux.
He looked at her, thinking: "She guesses, and suffers."
Suddenly she whirled round. "May I—see that letter?" she asked in a low voice.
"The whole note?" he said; "I'm afraid that it's private—notmysecret—I regret it—an official document, you know."
"All right," she said quietly. "You may come to me for help yet"—and turned to the pile of letters on the desk.
"Anyway, Rosalind is not a relative, to your knowledge?" he persisted.
"No."
She stuffed the letters into a drawer, bowed, and was gone, leaving him sorry for her, for he saw a lump working in her throat.
Some minutes after her disappearance, a plump little woman came in—Mrs. Hester Bates, housekeeper in the Osborneménage. Her hair lay in smooth curves on her brow as on the upturned bulge of a china bowl. There was an apprehensive look in her upward-looking eyes, so Furneaux spoke comfortingly to her, after seating her near the window.
"Don't be afraid to speak," he said reassuringly. "What you have to say is not necessarily against Mr. Osborne's interests. Just state the facts simply—you did see him here on the murder night, didn't you?"
She muttered something, as a tear dropped on the ample bosom of her black dress.
"Just a little louder," Furneaux said.
"Yes," she sobbed, "I saw his back."
"You were—where?"
"Coming up the kitchen stairs to talk to Mr. Jenkins."
"Don't cry. And when you reached the top of the kitchen stairs you saw his back on the house stairs—at the bottom? at the top?"
"He was nearer the top. I only saw him a minute."
"A moment, you mean, I think. And in that one moment you became quite sure that it was Mr. Osborne? Though it was only his back you saw?"
"Yes, sir...."
"No, don't cry. It's nothing. Only are you certain sure—that's the point?"
"Yes, I am sure enough, but——"
"But what?"
"I thought he was the worse for drink, which was a mad thing."
"Oh, you thought that. Why so?"
"His feet seemed to reel from side to side—almost from under him."
"His feet—I see. From side to side.... Ever saw him the worse for drink before?"
"Never in all my life! I was amazed. Afterwards I had a feeling that it wasn't Mr. Osborne himself, but his spirit that I had seen. And it may have been his spirit! For my Aunt Pruie saw thespirit of her boy one Sunday afternoon when he was alive and well in his ship on the sea."
"But a spirit the worse for drink?" murmured Furneaux; "a spirit whose feet seemed to reel?"
She dropped her eyes, and presently wept a theory.
"A spirit walks lighter-like than a Christian, sir."
"Did you, though," asked Furneaux, making shorthand signs in his notebook, "did you have the impression that it might be a spirit at the time, or was it only afterwards?"
"It was only afterwards when I thought matters over," said Mrs. Bates. "Even at the time it crossed my mind that there was something in it I didn't rightly understand."
"Now, what sort of something?—can't you say?"
"No, sir. I don't know."
"And when you saw Mr. Jenkins immediately afterwards, did you mention to him that you had seen Mr. Osborne?"
"No, I didn't say anything to him, nor him to me."
"Pity.... But the hour. You have said, I hear, that it was five minutes to eight. Now, the murder was committed between 7.30 and 7.45; and at five to eight Mr. Osborne is said by more than one person to have been at the Ritz Hotel. If he was there, he couldn't have been here. If he was here, he couldn't have been there. Are you sure of the hour—five to eight?"
As to that Mrs. Bates was positive. She hadreason to remember, having looked at the clockà proposof the servants' supper. And Furneaux went away from her with eyes in which sparkled a light that some might have called wicked, and all would have called cruel, as when the cat hears a stirring, and crouches at the hole's rim with her soul crowded into an unblinking stare of expectation.
He looked at his watch, took a cab to Waterloo, and while in the vehicle again studied that scrawled "Rosalind" on Osborne's letter to Janoc.
"A trip to Tormouth should throw some light on it," he thought. "If it can be shown that he is actually in love—again—already——" and as he so thought, the cab ran out of St. James's Street into Pall Mall.
"Look! quick! There—in that cab!" hissed a man at that moment to a girl with whom he was lurking in a doorway deep under the shadow of an awning near the corner. "Look!"
"That's him!"
"Sure? Look well!"
"The very man!"
"Well, of all the fatalities!"
The cab dashed out of sight, and the man—Chief Inspector Winter—clapped his hand to his forehead in a spasm of sheer distraction and dismay. The woman with him was the murdered actress's cook, Bertha Seward, the same whom Inspector Clarke had one morning seen in earnest talk with Janoc under the pawnbroker's sign in St. Martin's Lane.
Winter walked away from her, looking on the ground, seeking his lost wits there. Then suddenly he turned and overtook her again.
"And you swear to me, Miss Seward," he said gravely, "that that very man was with your mistress in her flat on the evening of the murder?"
"I would know him anywhere," answered the slight girl, looking up into his face with her oblique Chinese eyes that were always half shut as if shy of light. "I thought to myself at the time what a queer, perky person he was, and what working eyes the little man had, and I wondered who he could be. That's the very man in that cab, I'm positive."
"And when you and Pauline went out to the Exhibition you left him with your mistress, you say?"
"Yes, sir. They were in the drawing-room together; and quarreling, too, for her voice was raised, and she laughed twice in an angry way."
"Quarreling—in French? You didn't catch—?"
"No, it was in French."
Inspector Winter leant his shoulder against the house-wall, and his head slowly sank, and then all at once dropped down with an air of utter abandonment, for Furneaux was his friend—he had looked on Furneaux as a brother.
Furneaux, meantime, at Waterloo was taking train to Tormouth, and his fixed stare boded no good will to Rupert Osborne.
Furneaux reached Tormouth about three in the afternoon, and went boldly to the Swan Hotel, since he was unknown by sight to Osborne. It was an old-fashioned place, with a bar opening out of the vestibule, and the first person that met his eye was of interest to him—a man sitting in the bar-parlor, who had "Neapolitan" written all over him—a face that Furneaux had already marked in Soho. He did not know the stranger's name, but he would have wagered a large sum that this queer visitor to Tormouth was a bird of the Janoc flock.
"What is he doing here?" Furneaux asked himself; and the only answer that suggested itself was: "Keeping an eye on Osborne. Perhaps that explains how Janoc got hold of the name 'Glyn.'"
When he was left alone in the bedroom which he took, he sat with his two hands between his knees, his head bent low, giving ten minutes' thought by the clock to the subject of Anarchists. Presently his lips muttered:
"Clarke is investigating the murder on his own account; he suspects that Anarchists were at thebottom of it; he has let them see that he suspects; and they have taken alarm, knowing that their ill repute can't bear any added load of suspicion. Probably she was more mixed up with them than is known; probably there was some quarrel between them and her; and so, seeing themselves suspected, they are uneasy. Hence Janoc wrote to Osborne in Clarke's name, asking how much Osborne knew of her connection with Anarchists. He must have managed somehow to have Osborne shadowed down here—must be eager to have Osborne proved guilty. Hence, perhaps, for some reason, the presence of that fellow below there in the parlor. But I, for my part, mustn't allow myself to be drawn off into provingthemguilty. Another, another, is my prey!"
He stood up sharply, crept to his door, and listened. All the upper part of the house was as still as the tomb at that hour. Mr. Glyn—Osborne's name on the hotel register—was, Furneaux had been told, out of doors.
He passed out into a corridor, and, though he did not know which was Osborne's room, after peering through two doorways discovered it at the third, seeing in it a cane with a stag's head which Osborne often carried. He slipped within, and in a moment was everywhere at once in the room, filling it with his presence, ransacking it with a hundred eyes.
In one corner was an antiquated round table inmahogany, with a few books on it, and under the books a copper-covered writing-pad. In the writing-pad he found a letter—a long one, not yet finished, in Osborne's hand, written to "My dear Isadore."
The first words on which Furneaux's eyes fell were "her unstudied grace...."
... her walk has the undulating smoothness that one looks for in some untamed creature of the wild.... You are a painter, and a poet, and a student of the laws of Beauty. Well, knowing all that, I still feel sure that you would be conscious of a certain astonishment on seeing her move, she moves so well. I confess I did notknow, till I knew her, that our human flesh could express such music. Her waist is small, yet so willowy and sinuous that it cannot be trammeled in those unyielding ribs of steel and bone in which women love to girdle themselves. For her slimness she is tall, perhaps, what you might think a little too tall until you stood by her side and saw that her freedom of movement had deceived you. Nor is she what you would calla girl: her age can't be a day under twenty-three. But she does not make a motion of the foot that her waist does not answer to it in as exact a proportion as though the Angel of Grace was there with measuring-tape and rod. If her left foot moves, her waist sways by so much to the left; if her right, she sways to the right, as surely as a lily on a long stalk swings to the will of every wanton wind. But, after all, words cannot express the poetry of her being. With her every step, I am confident her toe in gliding forward touches the ground steadily, but so zephyr-lightly, that only a megaphone could report it to the ear. And not only is there a distinct forward bend of the body in walking, but with every step her whole being and soul walks—the mere physical movements are the least of it! And her walk, I repeat, has the security, the lissome elegance of a leopard's—her eyes, her mouth, her hair, her neck, those of a Naiad balanced on the crest of a curling wave....
... her walk has the undulating smoothness that one looks for in some untamed creature of the wild.... You are a painter, and a poet, and a student of the laws of Beauty. Well, knowing all that, I still feel sure that you would be conscious of a certain astonishment on seeing her move, she moves so well. I confess I did notknow, till I knew her, that our human flesh could express such music. Her waist is small, yet so willowy and sinuous that it cannot be trammeled in those unyielding ribs of steel and bone in which women love to girdle themselves. For her slimness she is tall, perhaps, what you might think a little too tall until you stood by her side and saw that her freedom of movement had deceived you. Nor is she what you would calla girl: her age can't be a day under twenty-three. But she does not make a motion of the foot that her waist does not answer to it in as exact a proportion as though the Angel of Grace was there with measuring-tape and rod. If her left foot moves, her waist sways by so much to the left; if her right, she sways to the right, as surely as a lily on a long stalk swings to the will of every wanton wind. But, after all, words cannot express the poetry of her being. With her every step, I am confident her toe in gliding forward touches the ground steadily, but so zephyr-lightly, that only a megaphone could report it to the ear. And not only is there a distinct forward bend of the body in walking, but with every step her whole being and soul walks—the mere physical movements are the least of it! And her walk, I repeat, has the security, the lissome elegance of a leopard's—her eyes, her mouth, her hair, her neck, those of a Naiad balanced on the crest of a curling wave....
"Ah-h-h!..." murmured Furneaux on a long-drawn breath, "'A Naiad'! Something more fairy-like than Rose de Bercy!"
He read on.
Soon I shall see her dance—dancewithher! and then you shall hear. There's a certain Lord Spelding a little way from here whom I know through a local doctor, and he is giving a dance at his Abbey two evenings hence—she and her mother are to be there. She has promised me that she will dance, and I shall tell you how. But I expect nothing one whit more consummate in the way of charm from her dancing than from her ordinary motions. I know beforehand that her dancing will be to her walking what the singing of a lovely voice is to its talking—beauty moved to enthusiasm, but no increase of beauty; the moon in a halo, but still the moon. What, though, do you think of me in all this, my dear Isadore? I have asked myself whether words like "fickle," "flighty," "forgetful," will not be in your mind as you read. And if you are not tolerant, who will be? She,the other, is hardly cold yet in her untimely tomb, and here am I ... shall I say in love? say, at any rate, enraptured, down, down, on my two bended knees. Certainly, the other was bitter to me—she deceived, she pitilessly deceived; and I see now with the clearest eyes that love was never the name of what I felt for her, even if she had not deceived. But, oh, such a fountain of pity is in me for her—untimely gone, cut off, the cup of life in her hand, her lips purple with its wine—that I cannot help reproaching this wandering of my eye from her. It is rather shocking, rather horrible. And yet—I appeal to your sympathy—I am no more master of myself in this than of something that is now happening to the Emperor of China, or that once happened to his grandfather.
Soon I shall see her dance—dancewithher! and then you shall hear. There's a certain Lord Spelding a little way from here whom I know through a local doctor, and he is giving a dance at his Abbey two evenings hence—she and her mother are to be there. She has promised me that she will dance, and I shall tell you how. But I expect nothing one whit more consummate in the way of charm from her dancing than from her ordinary motions. I know beforehand that her dancing will be to her walking what the singing of a lovely voice is to its talking—beauty moved to enthusiasm, but no increase of beauty; the moon in a halo, but still the moon. What, though, do you think of me in all this, my dear Isadore? I have asked myself whether words like "fickle," "flighty," "forgetful," will not be in your mind as you read. And if you are not tolerant, who will be? She,the other, is hardly cold yet in her untimely tomb, and here am I ... shall I say in love? say, at any rate, enraptured, down, down, on my two bended knees. Certainly, the other was bitter to me—she deceived, she pitilessly deceived; and I see now with the clearest eyes that love was never the name of what I felt for her, even if she had not deceived. But, oh, such a fountain of pity is in me for her—untimely gone, cut off, the cup of life in her hand, her lips purple with its wine—that I cannot help reproaching this wandering of my eye from her. It is rather shocking, rather horrible. And yet—I appeal to your sympathy—I am no more master of myself in this than of something that is now happening to the Emperor of China, or that once happened to his grandfather.
The corners of Furneaux's lips turned downward, and a lambent fire flamed in his eyes. He clutched the paper in his hand as if he would strangle itsdumb eloquence. Still he glowered at the letter, and read.
But imagine, meanwhile, my false position here! I am known to her and to her mother as Mr. Glyn; andthricehas Osborne, the millionaire, the probable murderer of Rose de Bercy, been discussed between us. Think of it!—the misery, the falseness of it. If something were once to whisper to Mrs. Marsh, "this Mr. Glyn, to whom you are speaking in a tone of chilly censure of such men as Osborne, isOsborne himself; that translucent porcelain of your teacup has been made impure by his lips; you should smash your Venetian vases and Satsuma bowl of hollyhocks, since his not-too-immaculate hands have touched them: beware! a snake has stolen into your dainty and Puritan nest"—if some imp of unhappiness whispered that, what would she do? I can't exactly imagine those still lips uttering a scream, but I can see her lily fingers—like lilies just getting withered—lifted an instant in mild horror of the sacrilege! As it is, her admittance of me into the nest has been an unbending on her part, an unbending touched with informality, for it was only brought about through Richards, the doctor here, to whom I got Smythe, one of my bankers, who is likewise Richards' banker, to speak of a "Mr. Glyn." And if she now finds that being gracious to the stranger smirches her, compromises her in the slightest, she will put her thin dry lips together a little, and say "I am punished for my laxity in circumspection." And then, ah! no more Rosalind for Osborne forever, if he were ten times ten millionaires....
But imagine, meanwhile, my false position here! I am known to her and to her mother as Mr. Glyn; andthricehas Osborne, the millionaire, the probable murderer of Rose de Bercy, been discussed between us. Think of it!—the misery, the falseness of it. If something were once to whisper to Mrs. Marsh, "this Mr. Glyn, to whom you are speaking in a tone of chilly censure of such men as Osborne, isOsborne himself; that translucent porcelain of your teacup has been made impure by his lips; you should smash your Venetian vases and Satsuma bowl of hollyhocks, since his not-too-immaculate hands have touched them: beware! a snake has stolen into your dainty and Puritan nest"—if some imp of unhappiness whispered that, what would she do? I can't exactly imagine those still lips uttering a scream, but I can see her lily fingers—like lilies just getting withered—lifted an instant in mild horror of the sacrilege! As it is, her admittance of me into the nest has been an unbending on her part, an unbending touched with informality, for it was only brought about through Richards, the doctor here, to whom I got Smythe, one of my bankers, who is likewise Richards' banker, to speak of a "Mr. Glyn." And if she now finds that being gracious to the stranger smirches her, compromises her in the slightest, she will put her thin dry lips together a little, and say "I am punished for my laxity in circumspection." And then, ah! no more Rosalind for Osborne forever, if he were ten times ten millionaires....
"'Rosalind,'" murmured Furneaux, "Rosalind Marsh. That explains the scribble on the back of the Janoc letter. He calls her Rosalind—breathes her name to the moon—writes it! We shall see, though."
At that moment he heard a step outside, and stoodalert, ready to hide behind a curtain; but it was only some hurrying housemaid who passed away. He then put back the letter where he had found it; and instantly tackled Osborne's portmanteaux. The larger he found locked, the smaller, lying half under the bed, was fastened with straps, but unlocked. He quickly ransacked the knicknacks that it contained; and was soon holding up to the light between thumb and finger a singular object taken from the bottom of the bag—a scrap of lace about six inches long, half of it stained with a brown smear that was obviously the smear of—blood.
It was a peculiar lace, Spanish hand-made, and Furneaux knew well, none better than he, that the dressing-gown in which Rose de Bercy had been murdered, which she had thrown on preparatory to dressing that night, was trimmed with Spanish hand-made lace. He looked at this amazing bit of evidence with a long interest there in the light from the window, holding it away from him, frowning, thinking his own thoughts behind his brow, as shadow chases shadow. And presently he muttered the peculiar words:
"Now, any detective would swear that this was a clew against him."
He put it back into the bag, went out softly, walked downstairs, and passed out into the little town. A policeman told him where the house of Mrs. Marsh was to be found, and he hastened half a mile out of Tormouth to it.
The house, "St. Briavels," stood on a hillside behind walls and wrought-iron gates and leafage, through which peeped several gables rich in creepers and ivy. Of Osborne, so far, there was no sign.
Furneaux retraced his steps, came back to Tormouth, sauntered beyond the town over the cliffs, with the sea spread out in the sunlight, all sparkling with far-flung sprightliness. And all at once he was aware of a murmur of voices sounding out of Nowhere, like the hum of bumble-bees on a slumbrous afternoon. The ear could not catch if they were right or left, above or below. But they became louder; and suddenly there was a laugh, a delicious low cadence of a woman's contralto that seemed to roll up through an oboe in her throat. And now he realized that the speakers were just below him on the sands. He stepped nearer the edge of the cliff, and, craning and peering stealthily through its fringe of grasses, saw Osborne and a lady walking westward over the sands.
Osborne was carrying an easel and a Japanese umbrella. He was not looking where he was going, not seeing the sea, or the sands, or the sun, but seeing all things in the lady's face.
Furneaux watched them till they were out of sight behind a bend of the coast-line; he saw Osborne once stumble a little over a stone, and right himself without glancing at what he had stumbled on, without taking his gaze from the woman by his side.
A bitter groan hissed from Furneaux's lips.
"But how about this fair Rosalind?" he muttered half aloud. "Is this well forher? She should at least be told who her suitor is—his name—his true colors—the length and depth of his loves. There is a way of stopping this...."
He walked straight back to the hotel, and at once took pen and paper to write:
Dear Miss Prout:—It has occurred to me that possibly you may be putting yourself to the pains of discovering for me the identity of the friend of Mr. Osborne, the "Rosalind," as to whom I asked you—in which case, to save you any trouble, I am writing to tell you that I have now discovered who that lady is. I am, you see, at present here in Tormouth, a very agreeable little place.Yours truly,C. E. Furneaux.
Dear Miss Prout:—It has occurred to me that possibly you may be putting yourself to the pains of discovering for me the identity of the friend of Mr. Osborne, the "Rosalind," as to whom I asked you—in which case, to save you any trouble, I am writing to tell you that I have now discovered who that lady is. I am, you see, at present here in Tormouth, a very agreeable little place.
Yours truly,C. E. Furneaux.
Yours truly,C. E. Furneaux.
And, as he directed the envelope, he said to himself with a curious crowing of triumph that Winter would have said was not to be expected from his friend:
"This should bring her here; and if it does——!"
Whereupon a singular glitter appeared an instant in his eyes.
Having posted the letter, he told the young woman in the bar, who also acted as bookkeeper, that, after all, he would not be able to stay the night. He paid, nevertheless, for the room, and walked away with his bag, no one knew whither, out of Tormouth. Two hours later he returned to the hotel, and for the second time that day took the same room, butnot a soul suspected for a moment that it was the same Furneaux, since at present he had the look of a meek old civil servant living on a mite of pension, the color all washed out of his flabby cheeks and hanging wrinkles.
His very suit-case now had a different physiognomy. He bargained stingily for cheap terms, and then ensconced himself in his apartment with a senile chuckle, rubbing his palms together with satisfaction at having obtained such good quarters so cheaply.
The chambermaid, whom he had tipped well on leaving, sniffed at this new visitor. "Not much to be got out of him," she said to her friend, the boots.
The next afternoon at three o'clock an elderly lady arrived by the London train at Tormouth, and she, too, came to put up at the Swan.
Furneaux, at the moment of her arrival, was strolling to and fro on the pavement in front of the hotel, very shaky and old, a man with feeble knees, threadbare coat, and shabby hat—so much so that the manager had told the young person in the bar to be sure and send in an account on Saturday.
Giving one near, clear, piercing glance into the newcomer's face, round which trembled a colonnade of iron-gray ringlets, Furneaux was satisfied.
"Marvelously well done!" he thought. "She has been on the stage in her time, and to some purpose, too."
The lady, without a glance at him, all a rustle of brown silk, passed into the hotel.
The same night the old skinflint and the lady of the iron-gray ringlets found themselves alone at a table, eating of the same dishes. It was impossible not to enter into conversation.
"Your first visit to Tormouth, I think?" began Furneaux.
The lady inclined her head.
"My name is Pugh, William Pugh," he told her. "I was in Tormouth some years ago, and know the place rather well. Charming little spot! I shall be most happy—if I may—if you will deign——"
"How long have you been here now?" she asked him in a rather mellow and subdued voice.
"I only came yesterday," he answered.
"Did you by chance meet here a certain Mr. Furneaux?" she asked.
"Let me see," said he—"Furneaux. I—stay—I believe I did! He was just departing at the time of my arrival—little man—sharp, unpleasant face—I—I—hope I do not speak of a friend or relative!—but I believe I did hear someone say 'Mr. Furneaux.'"
"At any rate, he is not here now?" she demanded, with an air of decision.
"No, he is gone."
"Ah!" she murmured, and something in the tone of that "Ah!" made Furneaux's eye linger doubtfully upon her an instant.
Then the elderly lady wished to know who else was in the hotel, if there was anyone of any interest, and "Mr. Pugh" was apparently eager to gossip.
"There is first of all a Mr. Glyn—a young man, an American, I think, of whom I have heard a whisper that he is enormously wealthy."
"Is he in the room?"
"No."
"Why is he—invisible?"
"I am told that he has made friends in Tormouth with a lady—a Mrs. Marsh—who resides at 'St. Briavels' some way out of town—not to mentionMissMarsh—Rosalind is her name—upon whom I hear he is more than a little sweet."
He bent forward, shading his lips with his palm to conceal the secret as it came out, and it was a strange thing that the newly-arrived visitor could not keep her ringlets from shaking with agitation.
"Well," she managed to say, "when young people meet—it is the old story. So he is probably at 'St. Briavels' now?"
"Highly probable—if all I hear be true."
The ringleted dame put her knife and fork together, rose, bowed with a gracious smile, and walked away. Five minutes later Furneaux followed her, went upstairs with soundless steps to his room, and within it stood some time listening at a crevice he had left between the door and the door-post.
Then he crept out, and spurting with swift suddenness,silent as a cat, to Osborne's room, sent the door open with a rush, and instantly was bowing profoundly, saying: "My dear madam! howcanyou pardon me?"
For the lady was also in Osborne's room, as Furneaux had known; and though there was no artificial light, enough moonlight flooded the room to show that even through her elaborate make-up a pallor was suggested in her face, as she stood there suspended, dumb.
Mr. Pugh seemed to be in a very pain of regret.
"I had no idea that it was your room!" he pleaded. "I—do forgive me—but I took it for my own!"
Oddly enough, the lady tittered, almost hysterically, though she was evidently much relieved to find who it was that had burst in so unceremoniously.
"The same accident has happened to me!" she cried. "I took it to be my room, but it doesn't seem——"
"Ah, then, we both.... By the way," he added, with a magnificent effort to escape an embarrassing situation, "what beautiful moonlight! And the Tormouth country under it is like a fairy place. It is a sin to be indoors. I am going for a stroll. May I hope to have the pleasure——?"
He wrung his palms wheedlingly together, and his attitude showed that he was hanging on her answer.
"Yes, I should like to take a walk—thank you," she answered. Together they made for the door;he fluttered to his room, she to hers, to prepare. Soon they were outside the hotel, walking slowly under the moon. Apparently without definite directive, they turned up the hill in the direction of "St. Briavels," nor was it many minutes before Mr. Pugh began to prove himself somewhat of a gallant, and gifted in the saying of those airy nothings which are supposed to be agreeable to the feminine ear. The lady, for her part, was not so thorny and hard of heart as one might have thought from the staidness of her air, and a good understanding was quickly established between the oddly-assorted pair.
"Rather an adventure, this, for people of our age...." she tittered, as they began to climb the winding road.
"But, madam, we are not old!" exclaimed the lively Mr. Pugh, who might be seventy from his decrepit semblance. "Look at that moon—are not our hearts still sensible to its seductive influences? You, for your part, may possibly be nearing that charming age of forty——"
"Oh, sir! you flatter me...."
"Madam, no, on my word!—not a day over forty would be given you by anyone! And if you have the heart of twenty, as I am sure that you have, what matters it if——"
"Hush!" she whispered, as a soft sound of the piano from "St. Briavels" reached them.
Before them on the roadway they saw several carriages drawn up near the great gates. The tinkleof the piano grew as they approached. Then they saw a few lantern lights in the grounds glimmering under the trees. Such signs spoke of a party in progress. For once, the English climate was gracious to its dupes.
The lady, without saying anything to her companion, stepped into the shadow of a yew-tree opposite the manor-close, and stood there, looking into the grounds over the bars of a small gate, beyond which a path ran through a shrubbery. On the path were three couples, ladies with light scarves draped over their décolleté dresses, men, bare-headed and smoking cigarettes. They were very dim to her vision, which must have been well preserved for one of her age, despite Mr. Pugh's gallantry. The overhanging foliage was dense, and only enough moonlight oozed through the canopy of leaves to toss moving patterns on the lawn and paths.
But the strange lady's eyes were now like gimlets, with the very fire of youth burning in them, and it was with the sure fleetness of youth that she suddenly ran in a moment of opportunity from the yew to the gate, pushed it a little open, and slipped aside into a footpath that ran parallel with the lawn on which the "St. Briavels" diners were now strolling.
With equal suddenness, or equal disregard of appearance, Mr. Pugh, too, became young again, as if both, like Philemon and Baucis, had all at once quaffed the elixir of youth; and he was soon by the young-old lady's side on the footpath. But hereyes, her ears, were so strained toward the lawn before her, that she seemed not to be aware of his presence.
"I did not guess that you were interested in the people here," he whispered. "That man now coming nearer is Mr. Glyn himself, and with him is Miss Rosalind Marsh."
"Sh-h-h," came from her lips, a murmur long-drawn, absent-minded, her eyes peering keenly forward.
He nudged her.
"Is it fitting that we should be here? We place ourselves in a difficult position, if seen."
"Sh-h-h-h-h...."
Still he pestered her.
"Really it is a blunder.... We—we become—eavesdroppers—! Let us—I suggest to you——"
"Oh,dokeep quiet," she whispered irritably; and in that instant the talk of Osborne and Rosalind became audible to her. She heard him say:
"Yes, I confess I have known Osborne, and I believe the man perfectly incapable of the act attributed to him by a hasty public opinion."
"Intimately known him?"
Rosalind turned her eyebrows upward in the moonlight. Seen thus, she was amazingly beautiful.
"Do we intimately know anyone? Do we intimately know ourselves?" asked Osborne as he passed within five yards of the two on the path. "Ithink I may say that I know Osborne about as well as I know anyone, and I am confident that he is horribly misjudged. He is a young man of—yes, I will say that for him—of good intentions; and he is found guilty, without trial, of a wrong which he never could have committed—and the wrong which hehascommitted he is not found guilty of."
"What wrong?" asked Rosalind.
"I have heard—I know, in fact—that in the short time that has passed since the murder of Miss de Bercy, Osborne, her acknowledged lover, has allowed himself to love another."
Rosalind laughed, with the quiet amusement of well-bred indifference.
"What a weird person!" she said.
And as their words passed beyond hearing, a hiss, like a snake's in the grass, rose from the shrubbery behind them, a hiss of venom intensely low, and yet loud enough to be heard by Furneaux, who, standing a little behind the lady of the ringlets, rubbed his hands together in silent and almost mischievous self-congratulation.
The house end of the lawn was not far, the words of the returning pair were soon again within earshot. The fiery glance of the watching woman, ferreting, peering, dwelt on them—or rather on one of them, for she gave no heed to Osborne at all. Her very soul was centered on Rosalind, whose walk, whose lips, whose eyes, whose hair, whose voice, she ran over and estimated as an expert accountantreckons up a column of figures to ascertain their significance. She missed no item in that calculation. She noted the over-skirt of Chantilly, the wrap of Venetian lace on the girl's head, the white slippers, the roses disposed on her corsage with the harmless vanity of the artist's skill, all these that fixed stare ravenously devoured and digested while Rosalind took half a dozen slow steps.
"But seriously," she heard Osborne say, "what is your opinion of a love so apparently fickle and flighty as this of Osborne's?"
"Let me alone with your Osborne," Rosalind retorted with another little laugh. "A person of such a mood is merely uninteresting, and below being a topic. Let the dead lady's father or somebody horsewhip him—I cannot care, I'm afraid. Let us talk about——"
"Ourselves?"
"'Ourselves and our king.'"
"I have so much to say about ourselves! Where should I begin? And now that I have a few minutes, I am throwing them away. Do you know, I never seem to secure you free from interruption. Either yourself or someone else intervenes every time, and reduces me to silence and despair——"
Their words passed beyond earshot again in the other direction; and, as the lawn was wide between house and screen of shrubbery on the road front, it was some time before they were again heard. At last, though, they came, and then Rosalind's lowtone of earnestness showed that this time, at least, Osborne had been listened to.
"I will, since you ask, since you wish"—her voice faltered—"to please you. You will be at the Abbey to-morrow evening. And, since you say that you so—desire it, I may then hear what you have to say. Now I'll go."
"But when—where——?"
"If the night is fine, I will stroll into the gardens during the evening. You will see me when I go. On the south terrace of the Abbey there is a sun-dial in the middle of a paved Italian garden. I'll pass that way, and give you half an hour."
"Rosalind!"
"Ah, no—not yet."
Her lips sighed. She looked at him with a lingering tenderness languishing in her eyes.
"Can I help it?" he murmured, and his voice quivered with passion.
"Are you glad now?"
"Glad!"
"Good-by."
She left him hurriedly and sped with inimitable grace of motion across the lawn toward the house, and, while he looked after her, with the rapt vision of a man who has communed with a spirit, the two listeners crept to the little gate, slipped out when a laughing couple turned their heads, and walked back to the hotel.
The lady said never a word. Mr. Pugh was fullof chat and merriment, but no syllable fell from her tight-pressed lips.
The next day the lady was reported to have a headache—at any rate she kept to her room, and saw no one save the "boots" of the establishment, with whom during the afternoon she had a lengthy interview upstairs. At about seven in the evening she was writing these words:
Miss Marsh:—Are you aware that the "Mr. Glyn" whom you know here is no other than Mr. Rupert Osborne, who is in everyone's mouth in connection with the Feldisham Mansions Murder? You may take this as a positive fact from"One Who Knows."
Miss Marsh:—Are you aware that the "Mr. Glyn" whom you know here is no other than Mr. Rupert Osborne, who is in everyone's mouth in connection with the Feldisham Mansions Murder? You may take this as a positive fact from
"One Who Knows."
"One Who Knows."
She wrote it in a handwriting that was very different from her own, inclosed and directed it, and then, about half-past seven, sent for "boots" again.
Her instructions were quite explicit:
"Wait in the paved rose garden at the Abbey, the square sunken place with a sun-dial in the center," she said. "It is on the south terrace, and the lady I have described will surely come. The moment she appears hand the note to her, and be off—above all else, answer no questions."
So the youth, with a sovereign in his pocket, hurried away to do Hylda Prout's will—or was it Furneaux's? Who might tell?